


Clench Fist, Grit Jaw, Can’t Lose

by mm_coconut



Category: Puppet History (Web Series)
Genre: Cute Aggression, Gen, HR complaint, blink-and-you'll-miss-it Shane/Ryan, unfortunate truths about jelly beans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28131054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mm_coconut/pseuds/mm_coconut
Summary: The Professor files an HR complaint.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara & The Professor
Comments: 18
Kudos: 45
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Clench Fist, Grit Jaw, Can’t Lose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silverfoxflower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverfoxflower/gifts).



> Read about cute aggression [here](https://www.litter-robot.com/blog/2020/10/09/what-is-cute-aggression).
> 
> Huge thanks to the group chat for emotional support and beta!

"I want to file a complaint to HR," the Professor declared, slapping a form on Steven's desk. "It's about Ryan."

"I'm not HR, though," Steven chirped helpfully. "We pay a contractor for that."

"He makes me feel like my life is in mortal peril," the Professor insisted doggedly. "I always catch him staring at me with murder in his eyes. Yesterday he crushed a two-liter bottle of Coke Zero in his hands while making direct eye contact with me."

"Well, maybe if you let him win Puppet History once in a while," Steven mused, picking up the complaint form. "Wait. I can't read anything you've written! It's just scribbles!"

"That's what happens when you don't have distinct fingers! Take it up with my creator!" the Professor shouted. "In fact—" He slapped the form out of Steven's hands onto the desk, grabbed the nearest pen with both furry hands, and started to make more deranged marks on the back. "I'm going to file a second complaint, but against Shane. How do you spell 'opposable thumbs'?"

"Okay, okay," Steven tried to soothe. "I'll have a talk with him."

———

"Ryan," Kate said in a fully reasonable tone of voice. "We're about to start shooting. You need to take the shades off, bud."

"Steven told me I need to wear them at all times or he'd stop stocking my popcorn in the break room," Ryan scowled. "Take it up with him. I don't know what this is about. Is it a bit? I think it might be a bit."

"Ah, you see, that's actually my doing," the Professor said with a cough.

Ryan's head swiveled around on his shoulders to stare at him like a hawk spotting prey. His eyes weren't visible, but the Professor knew that they would be brimming with malice. "What? Why?"

The confession would have died on the Professor's lips, if he had any. "Because— today's episode is about, uh— historical eclipses!"

"What!" Shane squawked behind the stage. There were some concerning thumps and clangs. "I thought it was supposed to be about—"

"Last minute topic change!" the Professor shouted back.

"But— my lighting cues! The musical number!"

"You can edit everything in post. It'll be fine! Just put sunglasses on everyone! You're good with the Photoshop!"

"We don't have the time and money for that!" Ryan protested. "Stick with the original topic, Professor."

"I have my own sunglasses!" Kate said helpfully. "Let me go get my bag!" She scampered off.

Shane sighed. "I guess… let me check with the musical guest, see if she has sunglasses or if I have to whip up a pair before we start shooting. You have your own, right, Professor?”

Ah yes, good point. Gotta maintain the ruse. The Professor fumbled his own bag open and rummaged inside, finding his sunglasses and pushing them onto his face on top of his regular glasses. "Tada! Now we'll all be wearing them. It'll be a bit, the fans will love it!"

There was a strangled noise.

When the Professor turned his head to look, he saw Ryan staring directly at him, hands clenching white-knuckled at the arms of the chair. The Professor couldn’t see his eyes through the sunglasses, but he was still frozen to the spot by two reflective, malevolent pools of darkness, intent on consuming his soul—

“Found ‘em!” Kate chirped, falling back into her chair. “Oh my god, he has little sunglasses! That’s so freakin’ cute!” Her fists pounded the arms of her chair. “Professor, did you buy those yourself?”

“Y-yes, I did,” the Professor stammered, finally breaking eye contact. He cleared his throat. “Steven informed me when I joined Watcher that as a new LA resident I am legally required to have at least three pairs of sunglasses on my person at all times.”

“That tracks,” Ryan said, voice devoid of emotion. “Are your other glasses in the bag, too?”

“Yeah,” the Professor said defiantly. “All five of them.”

Ryan twitched, a coruscating array of emotions hidden behind his aviators.

“Do we have a problem, Ryan?” the Professor hissed.

"Yeah," Ryan muttered, then sat up in his chair and set his shoulders. “Prove it.”

“Woo!” Kate cheered. “Fashion show! Model them for us, Professor! Ryan, you should edit this into a montage.”

"Oh, I will," Ryan said ominously. The dark mirrored lenses glinted under the stage lights. They tracked the Professor's every move while he tried on his other pair of glasses for Ryan, the camera, and the adoring audience (but mostly Kate). Once they started filming, Ryan never turned his head away for the entire game, that carnivore's gaze pinpointed with laser focus. He even gave the impression that he was watching the musical guest, Genghis Khan’s second-best saddle— who did in fact bring her own pair of sunglasses— but the Professor knew better. He knew he was being hunted. Surveilled. Watched.

———

The Professor burst into Steven's office. "The sunglasses have to go! Make him get rid of them!"

"No worries there," Steven said, swiveling in his chair. "Ryan got bullied on Twitter by the teens for wearing the wrong brand, so he threw them into the ocean."

"Good, he deserves a little bullying," the Professor growled, and stormed back out of the office.

———

The sounds that came from Ryan as he fed on a Double Cheesy Gordita Crunch would haunt the Professor's dreams for years to come, if the Professor actually needed to sleep. It did not make things easier that he couldn't even set down his lunch bag in peace without Ryan activating his fight or flight response.

"Can't you do that somewhere else? You're putting me off my lunch," the Professor scowled.

"This is the break room, and I am on my lunch break. Deal with it," Ryan said, bits of cheese, lettuce, and tortilla flying out of his mouth. A line of hot sauce dribbled from the corner of his lips.

It looked like blood.

Not that the Professor actually had any blood, but the visual was still chilling.

"What do you even eat?" Ryan swallowed and swiped at his mouth with a Taco Bell napkin.

"Jelly beans, genius." The Professor started unpacking his lunch.

"But… don't you—" Ryan's face contorted, like he was tasting something unpleasant. Maybe it was the Taco Bell. "—don't you… poop? Jelly beans?"

"And how do you think they get in there in the first place?" the Professor said triumphantly. Then, he scooped a jelly bean from the ziplock with his spoon and stuffed it in his mouth.

A change came over Ryan's entire body. _The_ Change, as the Professor had started calling it in his mind. Ryan's eyes sharpened in that predator's gleam, and his hands began to flex like clawed talons. His gaping maw dropped open to reveal the endless cavern of his mouth and then closed as he gnashed his teeth audibly.

"Stay back!" the Professor yelled. He flailed his spoon at Ryan. Like everything else the Professor owned, it was a gift from Shane. It was sized for human toddlers, and instead of a straight handle, it had a loop so that a hungry puppet might shove his entire hand through it and bring it tremulously to his mouth. It was shaped like a dinosaur. The Professor had asked for one in the shape of the Library of Alexandria, but Shane had said it wasn’t in stock. 

Ryan scowled and shoved the rest of his Double Cheesy Gordita Crunch into his mouth, biting down viciously. He glared at the Professor while he chewed, more bloody hot sauce coating his lips. The crunch of the tortilla was loud and violent, as if he was pulverizing the thin, brittle bones of a small, defenseless animal.

Again, it should be noted that the Professor was not in the possession of any bones, brittle or otherwise. Nevertheless, point taken, the Professor abandoned the rest of his lunch to jump off the chair and run, wailing, out of the break room.

———

"No, I don't think Ryan is a werewolf," Steven said absently at his computer screen. He scrolled and admired some cells in his spreadsheet.

"But you haven't seen him when The Change comes over him!" The Professor paced the office. "It's horrifying. One moment he's just my boss and hapless game show victim, the next moment he seems ready to bite my head off! Or, or squeeze the life outta me!"

"Do you technically have any life to be squeezed out? Or is it just stuffing?" Steven paused and actually looked at the Professor for the first time since he tore his way into the office and started ranting. "Huh. What would happen if Ryan squeezed you so hard your seams popped and your insides came out? Could Shane just patch you back up?"

"I don't know, but I don't exactly want to find out!" the Professor snapped. He jumped up onto Steven's desk and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, shaking vigorously. Steven was physically and emotionally unmoved. "You've gotta help me! Give me a bodyguard or something!"

This finally elicited a response from Steven, but it was not the response that the Professor was looking for. Steven frowned and pointed at his screen. "No way. There's no room in the budget to pay for a bodyguard!"

"Help me!" the Professor pleaded. He tried to make the puppy eyes, but that was hard to do when you didn't have eyelids. "Steven, I'm scared out of my tiny mind. I need protection. Anybody would do, if they'd just stand between me and Ryan!"

Steven cocked his head thoughtfully. "Anybody?"

"Anybody!"

"What about… two bodies?"

The Professor's heart soared. Shane had given him one, like the Build-A-Bear people. "Yes! Even better!"

Steven smiled. In the moment, it was a benevolent expression, positively angelic, but in retrospect the Professor would know the truth of it.

"Do they have to be human?"

———

"Please tell me why, exactly, I had to ask my mom for her dogs today," Ryan gritted out. He had one wiggling dachshund under each arm, and they both stared up at Ryan adoringly.

"It's Bring Your Mom's Dogs to Work Day," Steven said, making grabby hands. "C'mon, gimme one! Which one's Micki and which one's Dori?"

On the other side of the room, the Professor was hiding behind one of Shane's legs. "Why do they look like that?" he muttered. "The way they're built so low to the ground is… unnatural. And their tails are moving so much? Is that necessary? And the… panting? That's too much tongue, I don't wanna see it. Oh god, it's licking his face, that's— I think I'm gonna be sick."

Shane gave him a comforting pat. "Yeah, I'm more of a cat person, myself. Guess I passed that on to you. Sorry, Professor."

"Is this really going to work?" He looked up at Shane. "Maybe Obie could...?"

"Cats aren't really trained to be guard animals the way dogs are," Shane said. "Also, Obie hides under the couch and tries to cough up a hairball whenever he sees Ryan, so I don't think he's the kind of muscle you're looking for."

"Are you saying those walking tootsie rolls are the trained killers I need to stay safe from Ryan?"

Shane sighed. "If you'd just give him a chance, I know you guys would get along. Ryan actually thinks you're a cool little dude! He told me himself. He thinks you're cute."

"Everyone thinks I'm cute," the Professor said glumly. "Ryan is just the only one who wants to kill me for it, apparently."

"He doesn't want to kill you, he just wants to… squeeze you. Very hard. In his beefy arms."

The Professor eyed Shane. Shane did not eye him back.

"We talked about this, Professor. It's called cute aggression. Weird human instinct to bite or squeeze the things we find adorable."

"Well, when you're a foot tall and have no opposable thumbs, 'cute' aggression just looks a lot like capital-A _Aggression_ ," the Professor snapped.

"I'm working on the thumbs, all right?" Shane muttered. He nudged the Professor with his knee. "Just go say hi to the doggies. Ryan brought them all the way here for you."

Grumbling the entire time, the Professor made it nearly all the way across the room, where it sounded like Steven was giving the dogs the official Watcher company orientation while they looked avidly up at him.

The Professor cleared his throat. "Hi there, I'm the Prof—"

Both dogs whipped their heads around, and it was then that the Professor realized that he was fucked.

"Micki-Dori-Stop!" Ryan yelled in one breath, but it was too late. The two furry cigars launched themselves at their new chew toy, yapping excitedly.

The Professor screeched and spun around, running back towards Shane. Unfortunately, his creator had not seen fit to give him shoes, or even grippy little toe beans, and he lost traction against the smooth flooring immediately.

The Professor felt one, then two sets of teeth close around his legs, and he knew he was about to be ripped apart in a friendly game of tug of war.

" ** _Drop it!_** " Ryan shouted.

The dogs let go with evil little whines.

Before the Professor could even gather his thoughts, he was swept up into a wonderful, strong, masculine embrace. Was this what it was like, being squeezed? Held? Adored? What had he been fighting against? What a fool he’d been! He clutched back at the arms around him, finally, at last, returning their ardent regard.

Ryan was lecturing the dogs. "No! Not a toy! The Professor is a friend! He's—"

It was at this point that the smell finally hit him.

Ryan gagged.

"What the _hell_ , Shane? Why does he smell like this?"

Shane had rushed over when the dogs started moving; the whole ordeal had only taken a few seconds. Crisis averted, he shrugged as he drew closer. "The Professor isn't exactly machine washable, Ryan. Spot clean only, baby."

The Professor shuddered. "Baths, eugh." He stroked Ryan's bicep lovingly.

Ryan recoiled and shoved the Professor into Shane's arms, while the Professor scrabbled and tried to hold on to Ryan. "Dude, that's _vile_." He scooped up a quivering dog from the floor and rubbed it all over his shirt and arms, trying to scrub away the smell. The dog loved it. The Professor seethed with jealousy.

“Ryan, I am finally prepared to extend the hand of friendship!” the Professor announced brightly. “Fun fact: the Viking forearm handshake is almost certainly an early 20th century Hollywood invention!” He extended both furry arms in blatant invitation. “But the English word for ‘hug’, now that probably comes from the Old Norse word for—”

“I’ll take a rain check, if it’s all the same, Professor,” Ryan said, edging away. The dog was still squirming ecstatically in his grip.

“Ryan, wait!” the Professor pleaded. “What if we made a deal! I’ll let you win History Master! I’ll let you win every week, if you want!”

“Nah, I’m okay,” Ryan said, picking up the other dog and wiping his face on it. “It’s funnier if I never win a single game. Keep on fixing the scores, I’m cool with it.” He wandered towards the doorway, where Steven was on his phone and hadn’t paid attention to a single moment of the Professor’s pain.

“Why did you put me on this earth?” the Professor asked bitterly, watching the loves of his life— and the man whose shoulders they were attached to— walk further out of his reach. “Is my whole purpose in life just to suffer?”

“Well, mostly I just wanted to make a puppet show,” Shane mumbled.

**Author's Note:**

> The Professor makes Shane buy him a [boyfriend arm pillow](https://www.google.com/search?q=boyfriend+arm+pillow&tbm=isch). Steven doesn’t let him expense it.


End file.
